13 May 08
2 edits
Originally posted by RetrovirusNot really - that is to say, yes I don't. While overlapping (ideologically) with animal rights proponents in some ways - when I was younger, I suppose - I could never motivate myself to get into that particular cause. I think the treatment of animals is governed by human laws and that we do not have the right to do certain things to animals because doing those things is illegal. So de facto "rights" are created, maybe. But no. I do not believe the animals themselves have rights. But I believe they should be fully protected and I abhor many of the things that animal rights activists abhor. It's just that my intellectual/philosophical basis for 'protecting' animals is not the same as theirs.
Does that mean you don't recognize animal rights?
13 May 08
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderI didn't say the mentally impaired had no rights. All I'm saying is that the concept of rights stems from the same philosophical source as the concept of responsibilities. The two concepts are joined. Clearly there are exceptions - babies and mentally impaired being two, for a start. To argue that a formulation doesn't hold because there are exceptions is pedantic. "Rights" are an exclusively human domain thing. Of that I am quite sure in my own mind.
There are people who never can assume responsibilities (such as the mentally impaired), but who have the same natural rights as anybody else.
Any suggestion that plants have "rights" is a philosophical cul-de-sac as far as I am concerned. Mere intellectual puckishness, in fact. Harmless though. And any suggestion that 'if mentally impaired people have rights then plants have rights' can be safely ignored as the product of people shooting the breeze and having a bit of sophistic, absurdist fun.
Human laws protect plants in certain respects. Therefore humans do not have the right to do certain things to plants. The plants clearly have no intrinsic or inherent "rights". To argue as such would display a fundamental misunderstanding of what "rights" actually are.
13 May 08
3 edits
Originally posted by FMFYour post is a non sequitur; I was responding to your assertion (made in your first post in this thread) that something which cannot assume responbilities cannot have rights. I don't know what "philosophical source" you are deriving your idea of "rights" from, but the Lockean idea does not presuppose or even link rights to responsibilities.
I didn't say the mentally impaired had no rights. All I'm saying is that the concept of rights stems from the same philosophical source as the concept of responsibilities. The two concepts are joined. Clearly there are exceptions - babies and mentally impaired being two, for a start. To argue that a formulation doesn't hold because there are exceptions is pedant as such would display a fundamental misunderstanding of what "rights" actually are.
As to plants having rights, you shouldn't take seriously the title of whodey's threads. The Report nowhere suggests that plants have rights; it only suggests that they have some type of moral value. This is based on the majority of the Committee accepting Biocentrism: Living organisms should be considered morally for
their own sake because they are alive.
No one as yet addressed why that position isn't a valid one.
EDIT: You said this: Plants are incapable of assuming responsibilities; therefore they are cannot be afforded rights.
This is an incorrect statement for two reasons:
1) Replace "the mentally impaired" for "plants" above and the statement is wrong;
2) Rights are not "afforded"; they are possessed.
13 May 08
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderPerhaps you are right. Or perhaps you just didn't understand it. It doesn't really matter anyway. Nor does it matter what whodey wrote in the OP. People are talking on this Thread about "plants' rights" - and there are people advocating them - so what the 'report' did or did not say is pretty much moot. But if you want to discuss it, perhaps you can whip up some interest.
Your post is a non sequitur
Originally posted by no1marauder
[FMF] said this: Plants are incapable of assuming responsibilities; therefore they are cannot be afforded rights. This is an incorrect statement for two reasons: 1) Replace "the mentally impaired" for "plants" above and the statement is wrong; 2) Rights are not "afforded"; they are possessed.
You're being extremely pedantic. And it's now clear that you don't understand what I have been saying. It seems you are spoiling for a fight. I'm not interested.
I now expect one of three things from you: (1) further sophistry (2) some kind of insult or condescension or (3) huffy silence
13 May 08
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Originally posted by ZahlanziAs far as we know.
so intelligence, consciousness, feelings can only appear at organisms with nerve tissue?
If there were some other method for production of those things, I'd expect there to be lot of similarities with nerve tissue. For example, maybe wires instead of nerves and a cpu instead of a brain, but otherwise very similar.
13 May 08
Originally posted by FMFI haven't.
Originally posted by FMF
[b]Plants are incapable of assuming responsibilities; therefore they are cannot be afforded rights.
Originally posted by Zahlanzi
please explain that. because as it is it sounds too stupid;
Does it? Are you sure?
You have never come across the whole concept of rights and responsibilities being interlocked and inseparable?[/b]
13 May 08
Originally posted by Green PaladinWhat is "intrinsic value"? I think that statement's a paradox. Value depends on there being a valuer.
Does a two thousand year old Redwood have the same amount of intrinsic value as a piece of Lego? It seems Wesley J. Smith reckons they're about on a par.
No-one is suggesting that competing rights of humans and plants have equal value just that plants have some intrinsic value. Perhaps it's clearer if we compare 'plant rights' to those of ot ...[text shortened]... uccessful (thus threatening biodiversity) be accorded the same rights as an endemic species?
The redwood is more valuable because it's hard to replace and more useful to most people.
13 May 08
Originally posted by AThousandYoungI tried. But I don't think I answered it very well, it's fair to say.
What? Did you answer her question? I don't think you did.
Rights are a human construct. To say that they are "possessed" is just being esoteric. They quite clearly are given, taken away, flaunted, enforced, reduced, expanded etc. Rights are enshrined in laws, not people. To argue that rights somehow exist 'inside' humans, regardless of the reality of human interaction all around them is, to me, bordering on some kind of quasi-religious mumbo jumbo.
Laws are a human construct. Responsibilities are something that only humans can perceive, assume, ignore, misuse, honour. They are the flip-side of rights. Rights and responsibilities are the give and take of non-anarchic human interaction. Only humans have the capacity to understand their rights and responsibilities. So, my point is, only humans have rights. That is what my reference to "responsibilities" meant. It was intended to show why it is only humans have rights. The mentally impaired and babies are humans and therefore have rights which are enshrined in laws.
"Non-humans" - plants, animals, living things that have no capacity to perceive whether or not they have rights or to even recognize such a thing as responsibilities - do not have rights, but they are instead protected (to varying degrees) by the fact that humans use laws to restrict their own "rights" regarding the treatment of "non-humans".
13 May 08
Originally posted by FMFWell perhaps we have here a glimpse into the American variant of the Human Condition. Always bleating about rights, rights, rights. But as soon as you bring up the matter of responsibilities, they start bleating communism, communism, communism. Makes Americans difficult to talk to sometimes.
You have never come across the whole concept of rights and responsibilities being interlocked and inseparable?
Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I haven't.
Not that you have done such bleating here, AThousandYoung. Not on this occasion anyway. Perhaps it is simply your misfortune to have been raised in a moral environment where rights and responsibilities were not interlocked and inseparable.
Quite frankly, the linkage is entirely self-evident to me. I mean, surely? Responsibility #1 is to recognize and respect the rights of others, is it not? Or do these "rights" just somehow exist in some kind of surreal 'individualist' vacuum?
What rights would a single remaining human being on otherwise empty planet Earth have?
13 May 08
Originally posted by FMFTo say that a person has a right is a moral statement about right and wrong. That's all. If you murder someone, it's wrong, because that person has a right to life.
I tried. But I don't think I answered it very well, it's fair to say.
Rights are a human construct. To say that they are "possessed" is just being esoteric. They quite clearly are given, taken away, flaunted, enforced, reduced, expanded etc. Rights are enshrined in laws, not people. To argue that rights somehow exist 'inside' humans, regardless of the reality ...[text shortened]... s use laws to restrict their own "rights" regarding the treatment of "non-humans".
Can one have a responsibility to NOT do something (i.e. to not violate the rights of others)? That seems like an odd use of the word responsibility.
13 May 08
1 edit
Originally posted by AThousandYoung"To say that a person has a right is a moral statement about right and wrong. That's all." No. I disagree. I think you are mixing up separate things here. Rights and morality may overlap but they are not the same thing. In some States to enter into a legally recognized same-sex marriage is a right (in others that right does not exist). This right was established by legislation. And yet for a significant portion of the citizenry of those States a same-sex marriage is completely immoral.
To say that a person has a right is a moral statement about right and wrong. That's all. If you murder someone, it's wrong, because that person has a right to life.
For some people executions/judicial killings are moral and proper, for others they are immoral. In some countries the right to life is absolute, in others the right to life is conditional - it depends on whether or not you obey certain laws (the laws forbidding murder for example).
Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Can one have a responsibility to NOT do something (i.e. to not violate the rights of others)? That seems like an odd use of the word responsibility.
Not sure what you're trying to do here. Seems like wordplay. What is it you disagree with? There's nothing 'odd' about a responsibility (or obligation) to do something or a responsibility to NOT do something. It feels like your desire to disagree with me is stronger than the case you have to make.
13 May 08
Originally posted by Nordlysthey have the right to be chopped into little pieces and sucked out thru a hose, if someone else feels like it.
So babies don't have rights? Or do they have rights because they are likely to be able to assume responsibilities in the future? In that case, what about severely disabled people?
13 May 08
there was a book on electronic pyschic experiments a while back. one of the experiments was to hook up an ohmmeter to a plant to measure its skin resistance. you would then monitor it to see what it was feeling. if you imagined lighting a leaf of the plant with a match, the meter would take wild swings, indicating the plant was in fear of the match. it would do the same if you went to a different room and imagined it.
and don't forget the track about carrots' rights on the "undertow" album by tool ...
13 May 08
Originally posted by FMF"Plants are incapable of assuming responsibilities; therefore they are cannot be afforded rights."
Originally posted by FMF
[b]Plants are incapable of assuming responsibilities; therefore they are cannot be afforded rights.
Originally posted by Zahlanzi
please explain that. because as it is it sounds too stupid;
Does it? Are you sure?
You have never come across the whole concept of rights and responsibilities being interlocked and inseparable?[/b]
then a child who can assume no responsibilities has no rights. or a dog. or a mentally retarded person. that was what i meant by stupid.